Answer in brief
Treat a brand colour as a set of approved targets, one per medium, instead of one value converted on the fly. Give screens a hex value, give paint and coatings an NCS or RAL notation chosen from physical samples, approve each material and finish as a signed sample under stated lighting, and describe motion with named tokens. A one-page sheet per colour and one page for motion lets any supplier reproduce the result.
A hex code describes a screen, not a wall
Most brand guidelines define colour once, as a hex value, and treat everything else as a conversion. That works while the brand lives on screens. The moment it has to exist as paint on a shop wall, powder coating on a steel sign or dye in a uniform, the hex value stops being an instruction. A decorator cannot mix six characters from a style sheet, and a coating plant will not try.
What happens next is predictable. Each supplier translates the value privately: the sign maker picks the nearest shade in a fan deck, the painter asks the trade counter to scan a printout, the printer converts it to inks. Every one of those choices is defensible, and together they produce three different reds under one logo.
The remedy is to stop thinking of one colour with many conversions. Specify one identity with several approved targets, one for each medium, each written in the language its supplier works in. Paint and coatings come first in this guide because they are the hardest to correct once applied, but the same logic extends to materials, light and movement.
What the digits of a RAL number tell a coating supplier
RAL is the German colour standard behind many paint and powder-coating orders, and its FAQ is precise about what the organisation does. It defines and standardises shades and produces binding colour templates; it neither makes nor sells coating materials. That is why a RAL number travels well. It is a target that any manufacturer can aim at, not one company’s product code.
The numbers come in different shapes. In the RAL CLASSIC collection a shade has four digits, and RAL explains that the first is systematic: 1 for yellows, 2 for oranges, 3 for reds, 4 for purples, 5 for blues, 6 for greens, 7 for greys, 8 for browns and 9 for white and black shades. Each number is paired with a descriptive name, and RAL advises using both together to reduce the risk of confusion.
The RAL DESIGN SYSTEM plus uses seven digits, and here the number is a description. According to RAL, the first three figures give the position on the colour circle, the next two the lightness from 0 for black to 100 for white, and the last two the colourfulness, from 0 for grey upwards. Its example is RAL 270 30 20: a dark blue with hue 270, lightness 30 and chroma 20. Write the code in full: RAL itself warns that 000 50 00 is a grey in this system, while RAL 5000 in the classic collection is an intense blue.
NCS writes down what the eye perceives
The Natural Colour System, NCS, starts from perception instead of pigment. The Finnish paint manufacturer Teknos, whose paints can all be tinted to NCS colours, describes it in its guidance for professionals as a logical system based on how humans see colours, built on six elementary colours: white, black, yellow, red, blue and green. Every other colour is notated by its relationship to them, so the code describes how a colour looks, not how it is made.
Teknos explains the notation with the example NCS S 1070-Y10R. The four digits are the nuance: 10% blackness and 70% chromaticness. The part after the hyphen is the hue, in this case a yellow with 10% redness. Whatever is left when blackness and chromaticness are taken from 100% is the colour’s whiteness.
For a brand this structure is practical in two ways. A palette can be extended in an orderly way: the same guidance suggests keeping one nuance and changing the hue, or keeping the hue and changing the nuance, to obtain colours that belong together. And the notation is meant to travel across industries, between designers, manufacturers, retailers and customers. Which system to use is rarely a matter of taste. Ask the people who will apply the colour which fan decks and mixing systems they work with, and specify in that language.
Screen values and paint codes are siblings, not translations
Free converters will turn any hex value into a “nearest” RAL or NCS code in a second. Treat the result as a place to start looking, never as the answer. A screen makes colour by emitting light and a painted surface by reflecting it, so the two can be related but not made identical.
Even ink on paper struggles to show coating colours. RAL’s FAQ notes that printed colour charts are cheaper to produce but do not reproduce all RAL shades in their true colour, because samples made with varnish cover a much larger colour space than four-colour printing can. For that reason its original samples are produced with varnish systems. If a printed chart cannot be trusted for the last decision, a monitor or a PDF certainly cannot.
So choose the physical colour physically. Put the real fan deck next to the brand’s printed and on-screen materials, pick the shade that carries the same character, and record it as its own master value. A complete brand colour specification then lists siblings: the screen value, the paint or coating notation, and the print reference. Each is approved by eye beside the others, and none is derived from another by formula.
The same code looks different on steel, plaster and plastic
A notation fixes the target, not the result. The same shade usually looks deeper in gloss than in matt, shifts on a textured surface, and behaves differently as wall paint, powder coating or moulded plastic. This is not a supplier’s error. It is what surfaces do to light.
RAL itself treats surface as part of the sample. Its plastic reference boards, according to the FAQ, come in three thicknesses and three surface structures to show the colour across versions of the material. The same FAQ draws a line that brand owners should copy: colour charts are a guide and an aid and are not binding, however good an impression they give, while the registered colour cards are the binding templates.
Apply that distinction to your own brand. For every material that carries the colour, ask the supplier for a sample made with the real process on the real substrate, at a size large enough to judge from across a room. Approve it, sign and date it, and keep one half while the supplier keeps the other. That signed panel, not the code, is what the production run is compared with.
Light belongs in the specification too
Colour is approved in one light and lived with in another. A sample chosen under office ceiling panels will be seen in shop spotlights, in daylight through a window and under street lighting at night, and it will not look the same in all of them. Two materials that match in one of those conditions can part company in the next.
The practical response is to approve where the colour will live. Carry the samples to the site, or to the nearest equivalent, and look at them at the hours that matter: opening time, midday, evening. Stand at the distance a customer will stand. Hold the sample vertically if it is a wall and flat if it is a counter, because the angle changes what the surface sends back.
Then write the conditions down. The approval note should say which lamps were on, whether daylight was present and what the sample was compared with. Photographs are useful as a record of the occasion and useless as a reference for the colour, since every camera and screen reinterprets it. When a new site has different lighting, repeat the check instead of assuming the old approval transfers.
Motion needs names and values, exactly as colour does
Movement is the part of identity most often left to adjectives. “Smooth”, “confident” and “playful” are moods, and two animators will turn them into different results in the same way two painters will mix different reds. Motion becomes reproducible when it is specified the way colour is: with named values that can be reused.
IBM’s Carbon Design System shows what that looks like in a public document. It defines two styles of motion, productive and expressive, and reserves the expressive one for occasional, important moments. Easing comes in three named types, standard, entrance and exit, each published as a curve. Duration is handled by named tokens: at the time of this review there are six, running from 70 milliseconds for micro-interactions such as a button to 700 milliseconds for background dimming.
A small brand does not need IBM’s machinery, but it can borrow the shape. Define three or four named movements, for instance an entrance, an exit and an emphasis, and give each a value a developer or video editor can type in. State which properties are allowed to move and which never do: perhaps panels slide and fade while the logo never bounces. Carbon’s rule of proportion is worth copying too: the larger the change in distance or size, the longer the movement takes, so one name can carry different values at different scales as long as the intent stays fixed.
Contrast is where brand colour meets a published threshold
On screens, one part of colour is not a matter of opinion. The W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and its background, and 3:1 for large text, which the guidance describes as 18 point, or 14 point bold. The explanatory document adds that these are thresholds: a computed 4.499:1 does not meet 4.5:1.
Brand teams often assume their palette is exempt. It is not. The criterion excuses text that is part of a logo or brand name, but the W3C’s explanation states that, beyond logos and logotypes, text with insufficient contrast because of corporate identity or brand guidelines is not exempted. It also explains that contrast is calculated so that hue is not a key factor. What counts is the difference between light and dark, which is why a vivid brand colour can still fail as a text colour on white.
Build the answer into the system instead of discovering it during a website build. Test every text and background pair in the palette with a contrast checker and publish the pairs that pass. Where the lead colour fails for body text, define a darker companion for type and keep the original for large shapes and surfaces. Do the same for motion: Carbon’s guidance asks that there always be a way to communicate the same message statically, so decide what each animation becomes for people who have asked their device to reduce movement.
One sheet per colour, one page for motion: the supplier pack
Everything above fits into a short document that a supplier can act on without a meeting. Give each colour its own sheet: the name and role, the screen value, the paint or coating notation written in full with the system named, the print reference, and for every approved material the substrate, the finish and the gloss level. Add the identifier of the signed sample, where it is kept and the lighting it was approved in.
Motion gets one page: the named tokens with their values, the properties they apply to, a ten-second reference clip and the reduced-motion alternative. Materials get a board, physical and labelled, with the same identifiers as the sheets. A supplier who receives all three knows what to make, what it will be compared with and who signs it off.
Finally, give the pack an owner and a rhythm. Samples fade, get handled and go missing, so check the masters on a schedule and replace them from a freshly approved batch. A company whose colour sits outside the standard collections can go one step further: RAL’s FAQ describes a service in which a firm submits its sample and RAL produces register cards for that colour, available only to that company. Whichever route you take, the principle is the same. The brand is the set of approved references, and the codes are how you ask for them.
Practical checklist
- List every medium the brand colour appears in and give each one its own approved value instead of a converted one.
- Choose the NCS or RAL shade from a physical fan deck beside your printed materials, and write the notation in full.
- Ask each supplier for a sample on the real substrate and finish, then sign, date and store the approved panel.
- Approve colours on site at the hours that matter and record the lighting conditions in the approval note.
- Test every text and background pair for contrast and define named motion tokens with a reduced-motion alternative.
Questions and answers
Can a hex colour be converted exactly to RAL or NCS?
No. A hex value describes light emitted by a screen, while RAL and NCS describe colours on physical surfaces, and the two can only be related, not made identical. Online converters suggest a nearest shade, which is useful as a starting point. The final choice should be made by eye from a physical fan deck or sample, next to the brand’s other materials.
What is the difference between RAL and NCS?
RAL identifies standardised shades by number: four digits in the classic collection and seven in the RAL DESIGN SYSTEM plus, where the digits encode hue, lightness and chroma. NCS notates a colour by how it is perceived, giving its blackness, chromaticness and hue. Both are widely used for paint and coatings. The practical choice depends on which system your decorators, coaters and manufacturers already work with.
Why does the same paint code look different on two surfaces?
Because the code defines a target, and the surface decides how light comes back from it. Gloss level, texture, the material underneath and the application method all change the appearance, and so does the light in the room. This is why an approved physical sample on the real substrate, viewed in the real lighting, is a better reference than the notation alone.
Do brand colours have to meet accessibility contrast rules?
For text, yes. The W3C’s guidance on contrast excuses text that is part of a logo or brand name, but says that other text with insufficient contrast because of brand guidelines is not exempt. The minimum ratio is 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. If the lead colour fails, add a darker companion for type instead of lowering the standard.
How should motion be written into brand guidelines?
As a small set of named values, not adjectives. Give each movement a name, a value that can be typed into code or editing software, the properties it applies to and an example clip. Add a rule for what happens when a person has asked their device to reduce motion. Public design systems such as IBM’s Carbon work this way, with named styles, easing curves and duration tokens.